


Call Me Icarus

by queerofthedagger



Series: Merlin Stories [7]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Introspection, M/M, POV First Person, Poetry (kind of), Post-Episode: s05e13 The Diamond of the Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:22:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27962210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofthedagger/pseuds/queerofthedagger
Summary: You made yourself the centre of everything without even bothering to try, and I can't remember when I started to gravitate around you, just that I didn't have it in me to fight it, once I understood.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Merlin Stories [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728040
Comments: 10
Kudos: 40





	Call Me Icarus

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not repost my work anywhere or list it on goodreads (or similar sites).

You always were a bit brighter than everything else, a little more intense, more captivating, just _more_. Like the sun, some said, and at first I thought that a stupid comparison because it's clichéd and you would've scoffed too if you heard, if you ever realised how much you brighten people's life. But it stuck with me regardless, like a stubborn tune you can't get rid of, and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made; like reading something so many times it gets a whole different meaning, just not the one intended.

You can't look at the sun without getting hurt. If you're lucky, you can bask in its warmth and its light and we need it, _I_ need it, as much as the air we breathe which is another cliché but you tended to have that effect on people. You were bright and you were beautiful and all the things that are right in this world but looking at you, at the essence of what hid behind all those meticulously crafted layers, undid me like nothing else ever could.

It shouldn't have. For all intents and purposes, it shouldn't have because gold is as much my colour as it was yours, but then I've always been too willing to give you everything I have and more, without you needing to ask, without being left wanting for anything in return but a little of your brightness, a little of your warmth; that spark you ignited so easily underneath my skin from the first time I met you and wondered how anyone could look at you and see something more than a glaring nuisance.

But your warmth so easily burnt, and no one ever warned me that the best things are also those with the power to unravel me completely. You made yourself the centre of everything without even bothering to try, and I can't remember when I started to gravitate around you, just that I didn't have it in me to fight it, once I understood.

There are a million words written about parallels between spring days after a bitter winter or the light after the dark, but that is making it too easy, too clean cut, and it feels more like an imploding ball of fire anyway, devouring everything that comes too close without even noticing. Icarus still flew up to the sun and people like to smile indulgently at his story but I can only feel sadness for them because if they had met you, there might be more bitterness and nostalgia and also a sense of ' _nothing will ever be able to compare_ ' and less superciliousness. And I might've smiled the whole time I burnt and the sun might've never known that anyone ever cared so desperately, much less depended on her, but the years with you were still the brightest of my life and if that is a cliché, its weight is barely notable in the face of an ever-lasting night sky.


End file.
